"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll learn."
- Author Unknown
It is that time of year when one stops and cannot quite fathom that half of the school year has passed. It is also the time of the year that the winter doldrums firmly set in and we find ourselves perhaps in as much of a slump as our students. So how do we as teachers persevere in the mastery of the ongoing challenge of motivating our students?
Motivation is defined as the act of giving somebody a reason or incentive to something. The cause or driving force behind something that somebody does. I believe that success is the end product of consistent and appropriate motivation.
The word success is defined as (1) achievement of desired aim, the achievement of something planned or attempted; (2) attainment of fame, wealth and power (Encarta World English Dictionary). I thought the second meaning of success was rather ironic.
Coincidentally the day I looked up these words, I also came across a powerful point in a daily devotional series I study. "There are many things that fame, power and wealth can do-and there are many things they cannot do. They can buy happiness, but not joy. They can buy control of people, but not what people think. They can buy cars and airplanes, but they cannot keep them from crashing. They buy pleasure, but not peace or purity. They can buy education, but not integrity or honor. They buy lots of things for children, but they cannot keep children from hurt of addictions." (Progress Magazine Daily Devotional Series, 9/9/00)
There are several important variables that can affect our student's motivation.
Goals
Students need to have clearly defined goals and direction. What are they working for? What are they striving to master and why?
A Plan
This can be either general or specific, but students benefit in knowing how they are going to attain their goals and what the process looks like.
Charting Success
It's important to come up with a method of charting progress and recognizing success. Showing students how far they've come has a profound impact in motivating them to continue.
Flexibility / Creativity
Providing a classroom environment that is flexible and encourages student creativity is highly motivating.
Real Life Application
It is vital for a student to be able to relate learning to his own life situation. Helping a student make those real life connections and applications are extremely motivating.
Motivation and success are defined in many ways to different people. As educators we CAN instill and motivate in our students a positive attitude and help them become invested in their own learning. If we keep ourselves motivated as well, we will able to nurture and motivate our students natural ability to learn and succeed.
